How Howl Discovered His War Complex
by blacklitdogstar
Summary: This is really for my own fun. I, like many crazy writers, enjoy imagining crazy situations. I also love Howl's Moving Castle. So the fact the characters are now watching the movie in this story was born from pure craziness.
1. In Which Howl Discovers How Famous He Is

_I don't own any ideas for Howl's Moving Castle. I really recommend reading the book. If you haven't and have misgivings due to the fact that the characters seem so different, don't hesitate! It's just as hilarious and heart warming as the movie. _

_This includes BOOK references in great multitude. If you'd like, you can read this to see how different the book really is. If you have read it, I hope you get a small laugh._

When Howl first burst through the door of his moving castle one evening with the door dial black down, the inhabitants were just quieting down. Naturally, by the time the moon rose over Market Chipping, the castle was in a complete uproar.

It had all started when Howl had happened to be going by an old video store, just in passing. Nevertheless, as things generally happen with Howell Jenkins, it had ended up not being in passing after all. He'd spotted a film poster pasted to the front of the store (behind the "going out of business" sign) with his name on it and had immediately rushed inside to buy it. Perhaps he had also stopped by to see why he hadn't been cast as himself.

He hadn't even paused to read the back of the case; he'd figured that the general plot would be somewhat familiar. He'd merely rushed in, bought it, and rushed out, leaving the store workers in a daze and the shop smelling strongly of gardenias.

Everything had happened rather fast after that. Howl had run directly home and burst through the castle door, waving the DVD above his head like some sort of flattened and colorful trophy. A television had been conjured, frightening Sophie, who had fallen out of her chair where she had been absorbed in darning socks for Michael.

Sophie had gotten up immediately. She had ignored Howl's apologies and had angrily brushed herself off. Michael had rushed down the stairs with Prince Justin at his heels, a spell in his hand, to find Sophie poking Howl in the chest, Howl's hands raised in surrender, a sparkling object in his right hand and a black box from Wales rooted to the wall.

"HOWL! I told you NOT to do things like that to me! My heart is still having problems and can't take many surprises!" Sophie was yelling, repeatedly poking Howl in the center of his chest. Howl was laughing, waving his hands in the air, not even attempting to push Sophie away. Michael handed Prince Justin the spell and sighed.

"That'll be the usual, then," he said, accepting the lumpy bag of gold pieces from the Prince.

"Yes, that's fine. What's this ruckus, then?" the Prince asked, turning toward the source of his oncoming headache. For some reason, he always left Wizard Howl's home with a headache. Yet he still continued coming back. He really didn't know why anymore. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he felt the need coming on for a heated argument with his brother over war responsibilities.

"I found something amazing!" Howl said, taking hold of Sophie's hand with his free left one. He held it clasped there while she continued muttering to herself at his side and waved the DVD in the air. "It's a film about us! Wouldn't you like to see it, Michael? I'm sure it's just fantastic. It seems to focus on me, after all."

Sophie slipped her hand free from Howl's grasp and faced him. "Whatever do you mean? Where did this come from? Why did you bring it _here_?"

"Film?" Michael asked, still clutching the bag of gold. He had no idea what sort of magic Howl had created this time.

"I think I'll be leaving now," the Prince began. The beginnings of that headache were really coming on strong now. If his brother sent him to do his errands like this one more time, he was seriously going to have to drag Suliman back from his honeymoon before he lost his mind, Lettie or no Lettie.

"No, you won't," Howl stated cheerfully, popping the DVD in the television with a tight lipped Sophie watching from behind, "you'll want to stay and watch this, I believe. If only our wonderful Royal Wizard Suliman were here. Ah well, I guess you'll have to do." And with that, Prince Justin found that he in fact _did_ want to stay as leaving the castle would mean taking one of Sophie's good chairs with him. He was a bit stuck to it.

"Con_found _it all," the Prince muttered. He stuck the spell in his pocket as the castle's magical lighting became dim. Howl had caused him nothing but trouble after saving him. He couldn't help wishing for a savior that was a bit more modest. Who could blame him?

Sophie was intrigued. The black box was now imitating a blue, flickering light. She blinked a bit when the blue light suddenly changed into an enchanted, moving picture. Many different pictures were whirring across the screen in bursts of color and movement.

"Botheration!" Howl suddenly shouted, startling Sophie once more, "The sound isn't working. I could have sworn I plugged everything in correctly." He busied himself behind the box, moving the roots around. He apparently found what he was looking for within a few seconds and connected another root to the wall through a dark hole. Howl stood up, grinning broadly as the box suddenly began speaking in a low voice about "future films". "Good. The commercials are still going."

"What _is_ this?" Michael asked as he stepped closer to the box-plant that was now speaking about a different "film". This one seemed to be about talking cars with large, blinking eyes.

"This, my friends, is a television," Howl stated lightly. He collapsed into a chair and grinned up at the confused faces of Michael and Sophie. "It's sort of like a portable play. You can watch the actors anywhere with one of these." Sophie turned to look at the box again. She didn't know yet whether she liked it or not.

Michael, however, seemed entranced. The young apprentice bent to the floor and crossed his legs, all while continuing to stare at the thing.

"Sophie! Come sit with me!" Howl whined, opening his arms. Sophie blushed, feeling the blood rising up her face with great chagrin. He was acting like a child calling for his mother! But she went anyway, managing to become a bit tangled in his trailing sleeves.

"I'll have to cut those off if you ever want me to do this again," she warned softly, fingering the cloth.

"I've been notified," he said. They smiled at each other in the darkness and an annoyed cough was sounded from the prince in the corner.

"Must you be so couple-like with company over? I've heard that it is considered rude in some countries to-"the prince began but was cut off by an excited squeak from Howl who threw Sophie off and dived for the black box. Sophie was so surprised by the noise Howl had made to be annoyed with him for dumping her on to the rug.

"This is it!" Howl shouted, pressing a button on the box. Sophie had one glimpse of the picture there before the box's magical center changed again. A young girl sporting silver hair was holding hands with a dark young man in the shadow of what Sophie assumed to be a very large garbage heap with feet.

This wasn't going to be pretty.

_I'm up and running once more! This should be an interesting read. Thought I'd begin with a small intro before hacking my way through a second chapter. Perhaps split the movie into two parts? There's a thought. Sorry this is so short, though. I don't have a lot of time in my day._

_blacklitdogstar_


	2. In Which There is a Great Deal of Noise

I don't own Howl's Moving Castle.

A large and mismatched piece of moving machinery made its bumbling way across the lit television screen. Sophie watched as it walked through the fog of a small country town on bird legs, moving what looked like a magnificent tongue in and out as it traveled forward.

"Is…is that the castle?" Michael asked softly from somewhere to Sophie's right. Sophie didn't answer. Her annoyance with Howl was back. That and the fact that there was no light for her to see by besides the magical box before her made getting back to the chair more difficult than it should have been.

"I think that _is_ the castle," Michael said again, an awed tone creeping in to his voice. Sophie had found the chair and was now safely on top of it. She was able to focus seriously on the screen just in time to see another piece of moving machinery (this one quite long indeed) spit out black smoke next to a window pane.

"_That_ isn't the castle," Howl said unnecessarily from the floor.

"I know _that_ isn't the castle. Isn't that a train? But who...?" The box was now proudly displaying a young woman with brown, braided hair quietly sowing items to hats.

"Is that _Sophie_?" Howl laughed. Sophie saw a shadow below her shift backward, shaking heartily to the sound of Howl's laughter. Sophie, however, was very frankly horrified by the color of her hair. What had possessed the writers to make it such an unpleasant brown color?

"Look! It's Howl's castle!" a girl's voice suddenly exclaimed. Howl quieted down immediately and all was silent save for the dialogue from the magical box.

As the picture zoomed in on the giant, moving trash heap that was apparently the castle, Sophie's hair frizzed and a crackling voice whispered "What's that?" in her ear.

"Oh, hello, Calcifer," she whispered half-heartedly. The fire demon been coming and going as much as he could ever since Sophie had freed him. He was usually not gone for any more than two days, though. He kept coming back to the castle for logs. Sophie always wondered why he never seemed to want to impose on someone else's fireplace for a change but hadn't bothered to ask. His attachment to the castle seemed to be strong.

"Did you hear what happened to that girl Martha from South Haven?" asked the box, "Howl tore her heart out!" There was a slight gurgling noise from Michael.

"Sounds like Sophie when she first showed up," Howl remarked, ignoring Michael. Sophie could hear the smile in his voice and almost tripped him as he began to stand up. "Going on about the spiders really being the souls of the pretty girls whose hearts I'd eaten!" Sophie sent daggers in Howl's general direction with her eyes as his shadow made its way over to the work bench against the wall. There he banged around a bit before coming back up with something that crackled in his hand.

"Calcifer! Thought I heard you come in," Howl said energetically. Sophie crossed her arms and sank further down in her seat as the picture centered on "her" once again sewing those bothersome bobbles to those bothersome hats. Calcifer flitted his way over to the fireplace next to the box and settled into the logs.

"Yep," the fire demon crackled, "thought I'd come back and visit a bit." He grinned his fiery grin from the corner which never failed to make Sophie shudder…even if it was just a little.

"You wouldn't mind doing us a favor while you're here, would you?" Howl inquired in a conversational tone.

Calcifer crackled in the negative and Howl set about making interesting clanging and popping noises next to the hearth. By this time Sophie had begun to wonder why there were planes and what looked like tanks heading to what she assumed would be the May Day parade where the movie Sophie would most likely meet the Wizard Howl. She was becoming a bit confused with how the story was playing out. There also seemed to be quite a few soldiers marching in the parade. Come to think of it, Sophie thought, did I even go to the parade?

She did, however, remember looking at herself in a mirror once and pulling a hat over her eyes (or had it been a bonnet?). But she was sure that had been because she was a bit ashamed of how red her eyes were that morning after making so many hats the night before.

"Hey, looks like a little mouse lost its way," a dignified and fair young soldier said alluringly to the startled movie-Sophie.

A strong stench of gardenias came from Sophie's right. "Is that supposed to be me?" Howl said, a bit of annoyance in his voice. He handed Sophie a bowl filled with something that smelled slightly buttery and wasn't very heavy. Sophie was suddenly very absorbed in the movie and didn't look to see what she now held. Surely that young man wasn't Howl. He wasn't _nearly _as stately as Howl had been. Besides, when she had first met him he'd showed her one of his few pleasant sides. As he probably did with all the girls he'd met, Sophie angrily thought. She took this out on whatever she held in her hands which, unfortunately, turned out to be a bit softer than she'd expected.

"It's food," Howl whispered, "you eat it, Sophie, don't crush it." He lifted a bit of his own and demonstrated eating it for her, but Sophie suddenly became too distracted to notice.

"_What is this?_" Sophie suddenly shouted angrily, feeling her face begin to burn. She jumped up, knocking the bowl out of her lap. Howl caught it smoothly before it could spatter its contents all over the floor.

"Watch it, Sophie," he said calmly. Then he looked at the screen and saw what had made her so mad.

Michael was laughing a bit from the floor, trying to hold it in while Sophie steamed above him. Calcifer actually hopped from the fireplace where he had been dosing off to see what had caused Sophie to make such an outburst. A young man with long, blond hair falling handsomely across his face was now leading a very flustered movie-Sophie along a street. "I would _never_…" Sophie huffed, unable to finish.

Howl's laughter came last and loudest of all. "YES!" he shouted, setting the bowls at his feet, "they caught me perfectly!" Calcifer was also laughing, spitting a few sparks as his evil little mouth expressed his mirth, or so Sophie thought. The whole room minus Sophie continued to laugh as the movie-Howl saved movie-Sophie from some black, blob-like creatures by _flying straight in to the air._ The prince even managed a somewhat forced chuckle from the corner.

"Look, Sophie! We're flying!" Howl laughed, wiping tears from his eyes as Sophie's face became more and more red with her thickening blush.

"I backed away! I ran away from you!" she defended, stamping her foot, "I would have kicked you had you come closer! I would have!"

"I know!" Howl said, continuing to laugh just as hard, "That's what makes this so funny!"

"Well at least they got one thing right!" Sophie said, unclenching her fists a bit, "Look at how self-assured that Howl looks! He thinks he has me!"

"Well of course," Howl said, altering his voice a bit to match his movie version, "I _am_ quite the charmer." Sophie crossed her arms and sat back down in a huff. Howl chuckled.

"I'm a bit tired of this film," Sophie said gruffly.

"It's only just started," Howl told her. He attempted to hand her the bowl again but she waved it off.

Sophie watched as "Howl" dropped "her" on a balcony. She then snorted when he referred to her as "his girl" and dropped gallantly out of sight in to the crowd below. "Yes. Got him exactly right," she muttered and sank deeper into the chair. She only wished they'd been just as accurate with her.

Howl was now sitting next to her on the floor and munching the contents of the bowl he held. The movie commenced to show Sophie walk down to her sister in the bakery. Sophie couldn't think of whether it was supposed to be Martha or Lettie or a mixture of the two. Movie Sophie was warned of the evil Wizard Howl, to which Calcifer gave a short snigger, and left the bakery without heeding her much prettier sister's remarks.

"I wasn't in there," Michael said sadly.

"In where?" Howl asked.

"In the scene with the bakery...they didn't add me." Michael said this so sadly that Sophie nearly got up from her chair and to give him a hug. She would have if Howl had not decided to stretch his long legs across her feet at that very moment.

"I'm sure you'll appear later," she said instead, attempting to sound reassuring while also attempting to kick Howl's legs off her feet. The sentence ended up coming out from between her clenched teeth and sounding more like a threat. Michael turned around to see what had made Sophie sound like that to find that Howl was now toppled on his head. Sophie was apparently much stronger than she looked.

"I'm trying to watch!" Sophie said in a harsh whisper.

"Sure," Howl whispered back, "You're probably enjoying this as much as Michael is."

"Actually, I'm sort of getting in to it now," Sophie shot back. "I'm looking forward to seeing the Witch of the Waste." Howl just looked up at her and nearly began laughing again. Michael, however, shushed them and pointed to the screen.

"You guys are so noisy! You're missing it," he whispered. Sophie tore herself away from Howl and back to the television.

She watched herself close the hat shop. She really did kind of wonder when the witch was going to come in. How they would portray her was another mystery. Sophie wasn't necessarily as excited to see that.

The sound of a small bell emanated from the screen. Something in the atmosphere of the movie had changed and it had taken the amused feeling of the castle with it. All was silent as a very large figure moved forward on the screen. Then the silence turned to shock as realization struck. Then the realization turned to a general gasping sound from Howl and Michael who both sat gaping for a few moments like fish. When the large, flabby woman actually voiced who she was supposed to be, the room was filled with sudden and thunderous laughing.

The laughter of Howl, Michael, and Calcifer combined with the shocked "No!" from Prince Justin filled the room so completely with noise that no one could have heard the loud knocking on the door. In fact, when the witch called Sophie "plucky" the laughter increased to a point where it seemed the entire castle was shaking with it. Sophie was thrown. She was still at the level where all she could manage was gaping. She leaned forward until her hair was in her face, continuing to clutch the arms of the chair behind her, unable to grasp what the box was showing her. Her eyes were so wide with shock that it was nearly comical. Her expression may have made Howl and the others laugh harder if the continuous banging from outside the door had not finally reached them.

Howl rushed to the television and made it turn blue once more. He put a finger to his lips and tiptoed upstairs. He attempted to, anyway. A large crash sounded from upstairs followed by a couple of curses. Sophie rolled her eyes. When would he allow her to clean his room?

The banging from beyond the door continued without stopping throughout this performance. It was quite brisk.

"Should we answer it?" Michael asked, whispering. The room was still dark and the glow of the television created an eerie demeanor about the walls. Calcifer's light was not reassuring in the least. His green, flickering glow did not shed any light on the situation. On the contrary, the light _he_ emanated only made the walls seem to creep forward even more. Exaggerated monsters danced around them, taking the form of whatever their minds cared to create. Their minds hadn't cared to create anything reassuring.

The knocking continued.

Sophie had had enough. If she knew Howl at all, she knew he'd probably stay up there all night if he had to. She wasn't about to let them all sit down here in the dark for the rest of the night. Michael would be scared out of his wits by morning.

She was about to leap up when the knocking suddenly paused. She looked up at Calcifer.

"It's a human," he said, unhelpfully.

"I'm almost _certain_ the scarecrow isn't coming to call any time soon," Sophie said sarcastically.

"Only doing my job. Honestly, you people should know by now I can't do any more than that unless you'd like for me to go out there and look. They aren't moving, by the way, only standing there. Oh, and there's more than one."

"There, now you're being useful," Sophie said. This time she did get up and took a step towards the door.

"I'm always useful!" Calcifer said, clearly annoyed, "Who do you think is moving this shambling castle every which way! I don't have to do this, you know. I could go off and find an _accommodating_ family and settle down where I don't have to listen to bickering couples every time I come home!"

"Oh, shush," Howl said suddenly, "They wouldn't know which woods are your favorite and most certainly wouldn't go out of their way to find them." Calcifer blazed brightly for a second before shrinking down to a little more than a spark and flying to the hearth where he settled into the logs once more. This decreased the light in the room so much that it was almost impossible for Sophie to see Howl when she turned around to send an annoyed glare in his direction.

Howl somehow caught Sophie's evil look through the darkness. "I know," he said, "but if I answer that we most certainly won't be able to finish the film for days. It may even be delayed for months."

"What?" Michael asked, "Who is it?"

"A very evil presence that I vowed never to let enter here," Howl said ominously. Sophie's mind whirled. What sort of horrific monster could he have angered this time?

Just as this thought reached her, the knocking began again, this time with twice the vigor of before. Sophie was sure the others could hear her heart beating. It seemed to be trying to tear its way from her chest.

"If I hadn't put such amazing protections around us," Howl added, "you would be able to hear its alarmingly loud roaring through the door. Not to mention the appalling moaning sounds of its offspring."

_Offspring?_ Sophie wondered. _What sort of creature was this?_

She was alarmed, even without hearing the roaring. She also felt the tension radiating from Michael and specifically the Prince, who seemed to be frozen stiffly where he sat.

"That's it, Howl!" she shouted abruptly. Without even realizing what she was doing, Sophie made a rush for the door, her hand reaching out to wrench open the door knob wherever it took her. Sophie was going to leave. She was going to go somewhere very far away and not come back until Howl realized just how stupid his shenanigans were and how much danger and trouble they caused for the people that loved him. She very nearly made it, too.

"HOWELL JENKINS! OPEN THE DOOR!" The sound of Megan's voice had made its way through the protective charms around the castle. Howl strode up from behind Sophie and blocked her way. She could see his amused expression by the glow of the television.

"I'm warning you, Howell!" Megan continued, following the rhythm of the unfaltering knocking, "If you don't open this door I _will_ knock it in. I've stood you laying about my house for hours, doing nothing but spoiling my children for days on end. I've stood for your obvious lack of common sense for years! Years! But I will not, I will _never—!"_

The sounds of "Mum, Mum, has Uncle Howell really taken the television?" were just barely audible over the unbroken yelling and knocking before Megan was cut off mid-sentence.

"Satisfied?" Howl asked.

_Alright then! Thanks for reading! Off to do some Chemistry before my mother comes knocking at_ my _door…_

_-blacklitdogstar_

_P.S. I'd like to give permanent thanks to Xanthe Z. Young for giving me an awesome review! Check out her story if you haven't (which you probably have)._


End file.
